Author, historian, broadcaster and photo-journalist Nick Hordern lives in Hove, Sussex and Villers-sur-Mer, Normandy, where his love of both ‘counties’ is reflected in his writings, including “The Next County” series for Wellbeing. Educated at Stowe & Christ Church, Oxford, his best-selling books include “God, Gold & Glory” published by Doubleday and translated in 10 languages, including Japanese.
A regular broadcaster on BBC World Service (aud.150 million), he was Chairman of the Books Committee of the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain and has written for Newsweek, Restaurant Magazine and Los Angeles Magazine. He is Special Correspondent for New African Magazine, where he has interviewed such personalities as Richard Leakey, Nelson Mandela, and Sir Bob Geldof for his current work in hand on the history of Africa.
Hordern has lived and worked in the UK, France, Switzerland, USA (15 years), Mexico, and Africa.. His view is that the most romantic area to be explored is closest to hand and lies across the English Channel in northern France. With its particular light, gastronomy, coastline and superb cathedrals, northern France has long entranced tourists and travellers. The area brims with history, landscape, religion and cuisine and art: a humble follower in the footsteps as artistic giants as writers as Gustave Flaubert and painters, Claude Monet, Nick Hordern feels privileged to write for Wellbeing Magazine.
Playground of the rich and famous for 150 years, Deauville is still creating news. Last week I flew with a Press Corps to Deauville’s own airport at St. Gatien to celebrate the launch of a new and exciting direct London-Deauville route.
Today's Michelin Guide describes Villers-sur-Mer on France's Jurassic Coast as "an elegant seaside resort." But this charming town, with its Casino, sparkling plages and rolling wooded hills, was once the scene of as much heroism as any of the Normandy landings. Ahead of the 66th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, I followed the trail of Glider Pilot Regiment's Staff-Sergeant Bramah whose daring exploits on that day have just hit the headlines.
Never in a thousand years, you'd think, would a French frontline seaport in the Hundred Years War, push the boat out for the Brits, let alone their Monarch. Yet Honfleur, thriving at the time of William the Conqueror, does just that. British yachts in the Marina sport English names - Sea Rover, Merry Fisher.
Midway along the Japanese bridge came a sublime moment of déjà vu. I had seen this view before, in countless posters, postcards and art books. Visiting Impressionist painter Claude Monet's personal Garden of Eden, I was staring at a pond. Not any pond, mind you - the pond. The one made famous by the acknowledged giant of the Impressionists at the end of his life. The blue sky reflected between the lilies, the sun-dappled water, the azaleas and weeping willows, just as it was captured by the Master's brushstrokes. Illusorily - the crowd had melted away.
If you've never visited Evreux, you might think it might have more of a past than a future. The hapless victim of successive invaders - Romans, Germanic tribes, Vikings, Evreux was a battleground of the Hundred Years War; and was decimated by the Black Death.
In one respect at least, I have stolen a march on the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy’s much publicised faint last Summer when he was forced to forgo a trip to his country’s most visited attraction outride Paris, Mont St Michel in Normandy. He may not have made it – but I did.
Seeking a French Bank for my new Normandy lifestyle, I was amused when my would-be bespectacled female bank manager flourished a glossy brochure, adorned with images of the bank's HQ in the Old Market Square, Rouen.
